31 - 40 of 68 results for: JEWISHST

Like the US, Israel is a nation of immigrants. Israel additionally shares with the US vast economic, ethnic/racial and gender gaps, which are shaped and are being shaped by the demographic diversity characterizing its society. The course will provide a comparative framework for analyzing social inequality in Israel. We will start by reviewing essential concepts and theories in the study of social stratification. We will then review the main cleavages characterizing Israeli society, while comparing them to gaps in other advances societies and particularly the US. We will focus on class, gender and ethnicity as the main distinctions and will examine their implications for differences in life chances in several domains across the life course. We will conclude with a discussion of possible scenarios for change, which are relevant to both Israel and the US. Throughout the course, we will study critical thinking techniques and will use them for analyzing issues that are central for the analysis of social inequality in Israel and elsewhere.

Early theorists of the welfare state described it as a reaction to the emergence of needs and interests of specific social groups during processes of economic development and change. Later theorists countered that the welfare state does not merely react to social cleavages during times of economic change but rather works to actively shape them, in line with worldviews or the interests of dominant group members. Adopting the latter approach, the goal of this course is to provide the tools and knowledge necessary for a critical evaluation of the social services provided to Israeli citizens and their impact on social and economic inequalities. The course will survey various approaches to the understanding of the goals of the welfare state. A comparative and historical account of the development of the welfare state will be presented, while highlighting recent developments, such as the increase in poverty rates and the aging of the population. During the course, we will examine the diverse needs that are served by the welfare state, as well as major dilemmas associated with the provision of services. Throughout the course, we will study critical thinking techniques and will use them for analyzing issues that are central for the development of social policies in Israel and the US.

This course aims to equip students with an understanding of the cultural, political and literary aspects at play in the literatures of Francophone Africa and the Caribbean. Our primary readings will be Francophone novels and poetry, though we will also read some theoretical texts. The assigned readings will expose students to literature from diverse French-speaking regions of the African/Caribbean world. This course will also serve as a "literary toolbox," with the intention of facilitating an understanding of literary forms, terms and practices. Students can expect to work on their production of written and spoken French (in addition to reading comprehension) both in and outside of class. Special guest: LEILA SLIMANI (Goncourt Prize 2016). Required readings include: Leila Slimani, "Sexe et Mensonges au Maroc", Albert Memmi, "La Statue de Sel," Kaouther Adimi, "L'Envers des autres", Maryse Condé, "La Vie sans fards". Movies include "Goodbye Morocco", "Aya de Yopougon", "Les Baies d'Alger". nTaught in French. Prerequisite: FRENLANG 124 or consent of instructor.

This class will address major works by Franz Kafka and consider Kafka as a modernist writer whose work reflects on modernity. We will also examine the role of Kafka's themes and poetics in the work of contemporary writers.

Short stories from Israel, the US and Europe including works by Agnon, Kafka, Keret, Castel-Bloom, Kashua, Singer, Benjamin, Freud, biblical myths and more. The class will engage with questions related to the short story as a literary form and the history of the short story. Reading and discussion in English. Optional: special section with readings and discussions in Hebrew. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course for a Letter Grade.

Eastern European Jews spoke and read Hebrew, Yiddish, and their co-territorial languages (Russian, Polish, etc.). In the modern period they developed secular literatures in all of them, and their writing reflected their own multilinguality and evolving language ideologies. We focus on major literary and sociolinguistic texts. Reading and discussion in English; students should have some reading knowledge of at least one relevant language as well. ***This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit***

From its inception, Jewish-American literature has taken as its subject as well as its context the idea of Jewishness itself. Jewish culture is a diasporic one, and for this reason the concept of Jewishness differs from country to country and across time. What stays remarkably similar, though, is Jewish self-perception and relatedly Jewish literary style. This is as true for the first-generation immigrant writers like Isaac Bashevis Singer and Anzia Yezierska who came to the United States from abroad as it is for their second-generation children born in the United States, and the children of those children. In this course, we will consider the difficulties of displacement for the emigrant generation and their efforts to sustain their cultural integrity in the multicultural American environment. We'll also examine the often comic revolt of their American-born children and grandchildren against their (grand-)parents nostalgia and failure to assimilate. Only by considering these transnational roots can one understand the particularity of the Jewish-American novel in relation to mainstream and minority American literatures. In investigating the link between American Jewish writers and their literary progenitors, we will draw largely but not exclusively from Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe.

The emergence of modern racism and radical anti-Semitism. The Nazi rise to power and the Jews. Anti-Semitic legislation in the 30s. WW II and the beginning of mass killings in the East. Deportations and ghettos. The mass extermination of European Jewry.

(Same as HISTORY 85B.) This course explores the full expanse of Jewish life today and in the recent past. The inner workings of religious faith, the content of Jewish identify shorn of belief, the interplay between Jewish powerlessness and influence, the myth and reality of Jewish genius, the continued pertinence of antisemitism, the rhythms of Jewish economic life ¿ all these will be examined in weekly lectures, classroom discussion, and with the use of a widely diverse range of readings, films, and other material. Explored in depth will the ideas and practices of Zionism, the content of contemporary secularism and religious Orthodoxy, the impact Holocaust, the continued crisis facing Israel and the Palestinians. Who is to be considered Jewish, in any event, especially since so many of the best known (Spinoza, Freud, Marx) have had little if anything to do with Jewish life with their relationships to it indifferent, even hostile?